Bassnut62

Hate to be a party pooper; but I was not impressed with their compressor. It was pretty lame and it sucked tone. Also the footswitch broke within 2 hrs. To be fair you couldn't expect much more for that price; but it was £28 I woulda rather put towards something useable. As a budget starter compressor it would've been ok

Tech 21 boost delay ttt has gain, tap tempo, triplets, trails, and great analogue or digital sounds. Good and quite a small box

Hi You might want to talk to Hot Rox in Nottingham. I'm pretty sure they stock CM gear and their prices are v competitive. You could try before you buy too, or maybe just try.....and buy used elsewhere! PS. Are you that incredible bass player in that hot new Disco band in Nottingham, called SpanglePants?

Bought Dean's Selmer 30w valve amp. Good comms, good packing, good deal, good bloke to deal with. I recommend him! Bassnut62

Gary is a sound bloke to do business with. Great communications, reliable and accurate in description and goods. Thank you Gary From Rupert Bassnut

If I had to go down this road again, I would definitely keep it simple and classic; ie. Silverface Fender Champ or even better the Vibrochamp. Then just max drive it as hard as I want and roll of vol on Gtr to clean up tone when required. I just want to hear and feel those tubes. Also old Fenders take pedals SO well. I tried most of the modern micro valve amps and ended up with a Blues Jnr cos it had that sound; but it's not really a small enough amp in vol for home use. The modern micros were all lacking in something to my ears. I'm sure they're great to the ears of others tho.

Buy that dream, if u can. I dicked around with crappy 6strings for years and they never grabbed me like my quality basses. Finally bought a decent 6 in same league as my basses and now I won't leave the six alone!

+1 to Mr Foxen's reply. I use a Fender Bassman rig and first tried a big 4x12 Bassman cab and did just what Mr Foxen says - plenty of drive but not much bottom. So I settled on a ported 2x15 Bassman cab that delivers lows like you wouldn't believe, as well as plenty of mid punch; it can be driven well too.

That F Exelcsior sounds interesting. Can you put bass thru it and is it all valve? I've been using my F Blues Jnr for occasional bass at low volume with valves; but I'm not sure it's happy about it.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1326900143' post='1503439'] Don't forget that one of the classic amps for guitarists is the Fender Bassman... [/quote] +1 to that. I use a Bassman135 thru a MusicMan ported cab with 15" speaker for bass and it sounds just as sweet and lovely for guitar through the Normal channel; but it is SOOOOO loud on guitar! 135 all-valve watts is really a lot of power for a guitar amp.

+1 on small low watt valve amps. If you can stretch to a 70s Fender silver-face Champ you'll be in tone heaven for maybe less than £300 of all valve creamy-ness. Alternatively check out these http://www.vintageandrare.com/product/C.agnew-Tweed-518-2011-Tweed-11851 I just picked one up used for £130 and it was probably best £130 I've spent in a long time.

I love the tap tempo, trails/no-trails and gain option of Tech 21 Boost Delay TTT it is digital, but can comp great dadk warm analogue tones and has some other cool features. You could probably get one for around £100 used.

Re the Fender Super Champ demo above. I reckon we at comparing chalk and cheese.... The Fender Tele is actually a G&L Asat Special which is very different from the Tele Deluxe with HBs clone in the Agnew demo. Fender Champ sounds like it is pegged back for a cleaner and sweeter tone and it is being driven by those incredible and very powerful G&L MFD overwound single coil pups. Whereas the Agnew is at full blast saturation fuzz levels and driven by clone humbuckers. No comparison I reckon.

In the flesh, the Agnew is a lot sweeter than it sounds on the demo. I wouldn't argue though that that Agnew Gtr and amp will not be quite as good as a decent Fender Tele and a Fender Blackface Champ. The Fender set up would probably cost at least four times more than the Agnew set up tho. I reckon the Agnew Champ is a seriously nice little amp tho and a simple Jensen alnico speaker and valve upgrade would probably sweeten it up even more and still be only quarter the price of a real Blackface Champ. If I could afford it I would take the real deal anytime of course!

Check out these Champ clones http://www.vintageandrare.com/product/C.agnew-Tweed-518-2011-Tweed-11851 I just picked one up used for £129 and it is stunning! All tube,including rectifier. Circuits based on the best Champ from '57. Stunning, stunning, stunning! How can that much tone come out of 5w and 8" spkr?

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1326317069' post='1495497'] Ooh, combo... Ashdown Little Bastard Drophead. Deep breath before looking at the price though!!! Otherwise an Ampeg Fliptop, but that could end up even pricier than the drophead... The LB head and matching 1x12 do look very nice though if you're not 100% restricted to a combo, and cheaper than the drophead. I've built/modded a few valve amps in my time and this kind of project is something I'd love to build for myself in the future. [/quote] Now this is getting more towards my ideal home rig. I had been thinking about an old Ampeg flip top; that Ashdown does look like a good take on it, but too expensive. As you say an original Ampeg flip top would be cheaper! Have you tried the Ashdown rig? If so, what did you think? My only few experiences of Ashdown have been that they are trying too hard to copy vintage US valve sounds.

Hmmm, some good suggestions here. Thanks. I'm really looking for a small combo though. I've been using my Fender Blues Jnr at safe volumes (for this small 15w all-valve guitar combo); but I really want to crank a small good looking valve bass combo to the sweet spot at home. This dream combo needs to be an acceptable size for Mrs Bassnut to tolerate its presence in the living room too. Any more suggestions?

Fender Blues Junior, upgrade speaker to whatever suits you. You may want to get the mid tone stack modded so you can cut mid out 100%, depending on what speaker you go for. Check out BillM site for mods and speaker recommendations.